MischievousMonkey
Gor bu dëgër
Any tip for marinating chicken?
Cooking tips for beginners AMA
- Thread starter Caca-faat
- Start date
Cryptocurrency Scarface
Coinbased
most important thing involving cooking know what you want to eat first hand do your shopping well
Crimson_Dynamo
All Star
In
I need to diversify my flavour profiles in food. I stick cook with a heavy West African influence in my foods. I’m above a beginner, but a little shy of a home cook.
I might end up doing thanksgiving dinner to hone my chops somemore.
I might end up doing thanksgiving dinner to hone my chops somemore.
First thing first, put on some music, a podcast anything you can listen to that you will enjoy. The tv will be a distraction, good podcast will help an arduous task go by much quicker, this is a good time to fine tune your singing voice.
Always wash your chicken. I'm not here for none of this not washing your chicken business.
- Make sure before you do, take all the dishes off the dish drainer.
- You are not to wash your chicken under a running tap under any means, always use a deep bowl and place it in the sink.
- Fill it with water first then cut a lime in two and squeeze the whole lime in; a lemon is fine if you have it, but depending on the size half a lemon will do. Then put the whole fruit in, seed skin and all.
- Place the chicken in the bowl and let sit for 30 mins or so. The muscle of the chicken will start to look a bit opaque as the acid starts to cook the meat.
- Then drain off as much of the water into the sink while using your other hand to prevent the chicken falling into the actual sink. If the chicken has the skin on it then you can squeeze off the excess. Discard the citrus.
- Wash your hands and transfer the chicken to a large ziplock bag. I use a zip lock bag because it's easier to store in the fridge and makes it easier to marinate the meat as well as I do it straight into the bag.
There are a few ways to marinate a chicken
- Brining it- great for whole poultry and large pieces of meat.
- Using a wet rub - does the job, but not good for fried chicken as all the seasoning burns, so you would have to scrape it all off before hand.
- Using a dry rub - a good all rounder
NB: 1. Marinating or seasoning your meat is not purely about it's salt content.
2. There are more ways to add salt to your dish than adding salt itself. Soy sauce and ketchup contain umami which is gives food a richness, with
3. Umami makes food taste richer, gives it depth. Sometimes food taste bland but it really needs, a lil soy sauce, ketchup or tomato paste for that kick of umami. Please Google it.
4. For any dish you are making that has gravy cooked with the meat; you will usually add fresh (as opposed to dried) aromatics during the cooking process. Dry aromatics when raw, wet aromatics during cooking.
I never measure anything I just add till I feel like it's enough. Cooking by feel is a much more personal experience that's where your granny adds that love ingredient. It is the best way to learn organically and develop your chefs palate.
When marinating your meat, always put oil on your meat 1 tablespoons or so depending on the amount of meat you are cooking. It makes the dried seasonings more spreadable.
I always have the spices listed below and this would be what I would usually go to in some way, shape or form.
- Soy sauce
- Fresh onion
- Fresh Garlic
- Fresh Thyme
- Fresh ungrated whole Nutmeg
- Paprika
- Dried Rosemary (I only use this with lamb)
- Onion powder
- Garlic powder
- Celery salt
- Whole allspice berries
- Whole clove
- Whole cardamom
- Jamaican curry powder
- Whole scotch bonnet
- Whole Escallions
- Dried ginger powder
- Chinese all spice
- Salt
- Pepper
- Vinegar
- Mustard Powder
SALT
Salt is easy to get carried away with. So to avoid any mishaps I try to use alternative methods of adding salt e.g soysauce when marinating meat. But if you do use table salt only use a little when marinating but I tend to add it during the cooking process where I can taste and adjust where needed to my palate.
Be careful of dried ready made seasonings that are labelled chicken, fish or beef they usually contain salt and you dont want to add extra salt on top. Not good for your blood pressure, read the back of the packet. The higher up salt is on the ingredient list the more the product contains. This is why I buy the pure ingredient, pure garlic powder, pure onion powder.
With your chicken now in a ziplock bag. You can add whichever of the dried seasonings above depending on what dish you are cooking and what the recipe calls for. You can also just fling most of them on the meat and it will be fine.
Once you have flung all your dried seasonings in seal the bag and massage the meat, making sure all the knooks and crannies are covered. The warmth of you hands will help to warm up the meat allowing it to accept the seasoning better. Roll the parts of the bag between your fingers. Roll it on the counter with mild pressure, shake the bag up moving the pieces around. The oil will help to form a smooth pliable paste. If the seasonings isnt spreading add more oil. Then put the whole zip log bag into a plastic bag to avoid leakage and that's it.
Remove from the fridge if marinating overnight to allow the meat to come up to temperature.But you can cook the meat with about 45 mins of marination if done in a hurry.
I know that sounds super long and I've written an essay but this can be an 30 minute task. I just wanted to cover all the steps. Once this becomes an automatic process you wont even think about it as it will be second nature.
Berniewood Hogan
IT'S BERNIE SANDERS WITH A STEEL CHAIR!
I am legit confused by this. I'm going to heat this meat beyond 140 degrees. The microorganisms are going to be dead. Salad is what gets people sick in restaurants, not meat.
MischievousMonkey
Gor bu dëgër
Now this is a tutorial
Comes with life advice too
I'm not getting into this debate but I feel you!
I heard about Umami
that's like the 5th taste or something. Didn't know these ingredients contained it though. 
Thank you very much yet again for taking your time doing this. Very clear and detailed. You're the GOAT!
I like chicken and waffles, but pancakes are easier for me to make.
I got a waffle maker, but I can never get my waffles to come out the way I want them to.
I got a waffle maker, but I can never get my waffles to come out the way I want them to.
I am only going to address this one time. I can only think of one way to explain it and I hope it makes sense.
You know when you are trapped in an elevator with a sweaty white person and they have that smell; not armpit funk, that "raw" smell. That raw smell is what unwashed chicken taste like whether its marinated or not. Like a raw egg smell, the smell that makes u want to barf, you can taste that on the chicken. Washing your meat, with salt or acid gets rid of that taste. Heat will not destroy that taste, only washing the meat does. If you say you cant taste it that's because you have always cooked unwashed meat.
When you wash your chicken with salt or acid in the manner explained above, it gets rid of that mucus/slime that sits between the skin and muscle. After washing your chicken you can feel the difference in the texture of the meat. Like when you shower if you still feel greasy you missed a spot, the chicken is supposed to feel like how your skin feels fresh out the shower before you moisturise your skin. CLEAN
As previously explained, acid will start to cook the meat a little when it's sitting in the briny water.
People who don't wash their chicken makes me think they also dont clean their chicken. I inspect my meat for any anomalies, remove excess feathers, look for bruises where blood has seeped into the meat, because the chicken has been manhandled during processing. If I joint the chicken into parts I remove the marrow from the back bone and thigh area as well. This is all apart of the meat cleaning process related to poultry specifically. Not washing your meat is laziness in my opinion, why would you just want to take it out the packet and rinse it with cold water and start cooking.
What is the purpose of that quick rinse?How do you want them to turn out? I'm not a waffle expert, just curious.
Start practicing well before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is not a day for experimentation IMO, far too much pressure. Far too much can go wrong.
Practice the individual elements long beforehand to avoid any mishaps. When I make Christmas Dinner, I make tried and tested elements. I know how they are supposed to go so no surprises. I only experiment with starters and desserts.
Are you making the whole dinner yourself, or just 1 or 2 elements? The latter gives you more wiggle room.
Definitely not the whole thing. I’ll probably make a few dishes instead.